Chapter TWO

Evolution of Quality and Its Contemporary

Application to Projects
o The concept of quality management can be traced back
to medieval Europe when craftsman guilds developed
strict guidelines for how products were inspected for
defects. This craftsmanship model with an emphasis on
inspections and quality control extended through the
early years of the Industrial Revolution.

o Here we travel back in time to explore the true origin of

QMS and how it has evolved in recent years to become a
widely adopted cloud-based enterprise solution that
helps highly regulated companies achieve new product
development and introduction (NPDI) success.
 The Dark Ages [The Age of
Craftsmanship (pre-1900)]
 Why the Dark Ages? It was coined by the scholar,
Petrarch, during the Renaissance. This time period began
after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The Dark
Ages were called that name due to a supposed period of
decline in culture and science.

 It where the march of quality began during the age of craft

production, the 1700s and before. During this period,
individual craftsman guilds produced items for use by
others.

 The craftsmen were totally responsible for the product

 Groups of craftsman joined together and set standards for
their field.
 Work began to move to central locations where
many workers combined their efforts toward a
common goal.

 The production of a teapot, was broken down into

tasks. Individual workers were responsible for only
a part of the final product.

 Often, the workers did not even have a view of

what the final product was; they were only
responsible for their particular piece.
 Scientific Approach in Quality Management

• Frederick Winslow Taylor saw things differently.

• In his view, if you want to make the boat go faster,
you should examine and analyze those things that
make the boat go and determine the best way to
do it.
• In other words, it is not what you do, but how you
do it that counts.
• In 1911, he published The Principles of Scientific
Management, which described his approach.
• Taylor suggested that in getting things done, there
is “one best method,” and it is management’s
responsibility to determine that method and the
worker’s responsibility to follow established
procedures.

• Taylor changed the focus from the worker to the

process and, most significantly, planning and
execution.

• Planning was a responsibility of management;

execution was a responsibility of workers.
 Taylor’s approach broke the mould of worker-focused
quality, but failed to recognize two key aspects of
quality.
1. Motivation: Taylor assumed that workers were
principally motivated by money. He described a “high-
priced man” as a worker who will perform according to
management’s prescribed procedures for money.
2. Once an optimal procedure is defined, the results will be
the same for every worker.

 Taylor’s scientific management involves

– One way of doing something,
– One standard worker,
– No variation in performance, and
– No communication between workers and management.
 Understanding Variation

• The next leap forward occurred when Walter A

Shewhart expanded the quality focus to include
variation.
• Shewhart was assigned a project to develop a radio
headset for the military.
• The headsets had to fit comfortably, so “head breadth”
(the physical distance between the ears) was one of the
factors to be considered.
• Some people had wide heads, some had narrow heads,
and a lot fell in between. The data seemed to follow a
normal distribution pattern.
• Shewhart’s studies revealed that almost all
types of repeatable processes exhibit
variation.

• The key is repeatable processes.

• If you do something the same way over and

over, the results will not be exactly the same.
• Over time, Shewhart developed methods for analyzing and
understanding this variation.

• His work became a foundation for doing something about the

variation, not just observing it.

• In 1931, he published Economic Control of Quality in

Manufactured Products, which outlined the principles of
statistical process control (SPC), a disciplined approach for
improving quality by reducing variation in the process.

• In 1939, Shewhart published another book, Statistical Method

from the Viewpoint of Quality Control, which introduced the
plan-do-check-act cycle as a means of implementing quality
improvements.
 Inspection reign
• Variation meant potential waste.

• If a product varied too far from a target, it had to be

redone or discarded.

• W. Edwards Deming, who had worked with Shewhart at

Western Electric, helped the War Department apply
Shewhart’s methods.

• Conformance to specifications became the central focus of

quality, and inspection (comparing final results to targets)
became the primary method of achieving conformance.
 Japanese Quality

• In Japan, members of the Japanese Union of Scientists

and Engineers considered quality a key component in
rebuilding the country’s industrial base in ways that would
enhance international competitiveness.
• They invited experts from other countries to come to Japan
and share their methods.
• W. Edwards Deming was one of the first. In 1950, he
presented a series of lectures to leaders of Japanese
industry.
• The Japanese participants were much taken by both Dr.
Deming and his ideas.
• They listened carefully and took steps to put quality
concepts into practice, particularly Statistical process
control (SPC).
 W. EDWARDS DEMING

• Deming is regarded as father of quality

movement.

 He stressed that the responsibility for quality

remains with top management.
 He emphasized on prevention rather than cure
as the key to quality.
• Project managers and other levels of management are primarily
responsible for quality.

• This obligation is based on a principle credited by various sources to

both Joseph Juran and W. Edwards Deming.

• It is the “85/15 rule”, which states that 85% of workers’

performance is determined by the system they work within and
15% is determined by their own individual effort.
• Management, not individual workers, is responsible for the system.
• Therefore, when seeking improvement in a process, project managers
should first analyze and fix the system, not blame the workers. In the
same way, project managers should be careful about rewarding
individual workers for system performance over which they had no
influence. Rewarding people for the wrong things can be just as
harmful to organizational cohesion and morale as blaming people for
the wrong things.
• Other American quality pioneers called Joseph Juran
visited and provided a more strategic view that
expanded quality methods to all functions within an
organization, not just the shop floor.

• His definition of quality as “fit for customer use”

changed the focus from conformance to specification
to meeting customer expectations.

• Armand Feigenbaum’s “total quality control”

approach integrated the various departments in an
organization so that quality became a way of life — all
elements of an organization working together
toward the same goals.
 JOSEPH MOSES JURAN

• He defined quality as “fitness for purpose”…

…Products or service should meet its customer
need.

• He identified three steps to quality

improvement:
– Make annual improvement plans.
– Train everyone in the organization.
– Leadership focuses on quality.
Juran ten steps approach to quality improvement
• For their own part, Japanese engineers and managers added
internal customers to the quality equation, those elements of
a process that receive input from others and act on it in some way
before providing it to the next element in the process.

• They added the concept of quality circles — small groups of

workers and managers who work together to solve a problem —
a far cry from Taylor’s “do what management says” approach.

• And perhaps of most significance, they added the concept of

kaizen — continual, incremental improvement.
• Quality was no longer a destination based on
conformance to requirements; it became a journey that
never ends.
 Customers and Systems

• In the contemporary view, customer requirements

define quality, not products or processes.

• In other words, it is not what you do or how you do it,

but who uses it that counts.

QUALITY IS IN THE PERCEPTION OF THE

CUSTOMER!

• Using the classic example from quality literature again: You

can make the best buggy whip (seregela) that was ever
made, using the finest materials and applying efficient
processes that have almost no defects or waste, but if
nobody needs a buggy whip, it just does not matter.
• Many things work together to yield products that
meet customer requirements.

• Viewing these things independently can lead to

competition among the elements that interferes with the
desired quality outcomes.

• Viewing these things as a system allows integrated

consideration and optimization of the whole for the
customer’s benefit. Elements of a quality system include
external customers, internal customers, suppliers,
materials, processes, policies, tools, skills, capabilities,
and even society as a whole.
 2.2. The Wheel of Quality

• The concepts of contemporary quality can be

displayed using the three elements:

1. Customer focus,
2. Variation, and
3. Continuous improvement, showing the
relationships and interactions among them.

• It also adds the essential elements of training

and leadership.
Figure 2.1. The Wheel of Quality.
 1.Customer Focus
• Projects have more than one customer.
• The tendency is to view the person or organization that
pays the bills as the only customer or the only customer of
any importance.
• A more savvy (sensible) view recognizes the existence of a
number of customers that generally fall into three
categories.
– External customers : those outside the organization or the
project team. Like, the client, suppliers.
– Internal customers : employees and departments
– Hidden customers: people or organizations that do not
participate directly in the project, but have an interest in or
concern about the project to the degree that they may want to
influence the outcome. Like, regulators, general public
 Customers are important for many reasons!
• People who do not think customers are important
should try to do business without them for a while.
– Customers buy our products.
– They buy our products repeatedly.
– They tell their friends to buy our products.
– They define needs for new products.
– They indicate interest in, or a lack of interest in, or even
opposition to, potential products.
– And perhaps most important of all, they complain and
give us valuable information and insight for improving
our products.
• All of this suggests a customer role that falls into
four parts:
1. Provide needs and requirements — Customers are
important because they are the source of requirements
that are the foundation for the project.
2. Define standards — Beyond requirements, customers
describe “how well” a product should perform. They
provide measurable targets. [performance targets]
3. Evaluate products — Customers will accept or
reject products based on the degree to which the
products meet their expectations.
4. Provide feedback — Customers will comment,
complain, recommend, or purchase a product again.
 2. Variation

• Repeatable processes do not produce precisely

repeatable results.
• Variation is a characteristic of any production process, but
it is not a great mystery.
• Variation can and must be understood and controlled in
order to influence results.
• The unique aspects of projects can lead managers and team
members to believe that everything they do is unique and
that variation is not an issue.
• Project managers may have to spend a little time to
determine what tasks within a project, or between
projects, involve repeatable work.
• Doing so is an early step toward improved quality.
• This is an important matter because variation can produce
defects.
• After identifying sources of potential variation, project
managers must seek to understand the variation, why it
occurs, and what its effects are.

• Then they must control the variation so the process involved

performs consistently, producing predictable results.

• Improvement occurs when project managers or members of

the project team analyze the process and take action to
reduce the variation to some degree.

• If the process is routinely producing results that lie outside

established specifications, it must be fixed immediately.
3. Continuous improvement
 Involves at least three specific actions.
1. Communication is essential. The project team must have
effective communication within itself and with customers,
suppliers, and stakeholders. Communication is the means of
identifying problems and opportunities, resolving problems,
and exploiting opportunities.

2. Corrective action is also essential. Fixing problems is

necessary, but not sufficient. Project managers and team
members must also identify the causes for any problems and
eliminate them or reduce them to the greatest extent possible. It
is good to fix a problem; it is better to prevent it from occurring
again.

3. Identifying and acting on opportunities.

The plan-do- check- act cycle provides a disciplined approach
• The results of continuous improvement provides common benefits to
the performing organization that enable it to:
1. Meet dynamic needs and requirements — Customer needs are
always changing. Give them what they ask for and they will ask for
more.
2. Stay competitive — Competitors are always improving. The global
marketplace is not in a steady state; it is a race, and you cannot win a
race by standing still.
3. Reduce costs, increase profits — The global marketplace includes
competitors with very low costs, particularly in labor. Reducing costs
can increase competitiveness, which will increase sales and overall
profit.
4. Develop new technologies, processes, and products — Technology
is always changing. Improving processes to take advantage of new
technology or simply to employ a better way can reduce costs, provide
a better product, or both.
 4. Training and Leadership
• Training is the foundation of quality.

• Members of the project team, including the

project manager, must be trained in all
necessary skills.

• Members new to the team during

implementation must be trained also, not
simply placed on the job and admonished to
learn from others.
• Leadership is the unifying force of quality.
• The goals of leadership are to improve performance
and quality, increase output, and bring pride of
workmanship to people.
• Leadership is necessary to eliminate the causes of
defects, not just the defects alone.
• To be effective,
– leaders must know the job.
– They must be technically competent in the work at hand and
– capable in purely leadership skills in order to earn the
respect and commitment of team members and to represent
the project team well with customers, stakeholders, and
upper management within the organization.
 The Wheel of Quality Model
• The graphic image of The Wheel of Quality discloses
how all these elements interact.

• Customer focus, variation, and continuous improvement

are the central issues in contemporary quality.

• Each is related to the others and shares a common

boundary.

• Each is expressed through a more specific aspect of project

work — respectively, requirements, processes, and controls.
 2.3. Quality and Responsibility

• Given all this, a simple question remains: Who is

responsible for quality?

• In times past, the quality department was

responsible, but no more.

• Quality departments have been significantly reduced

and functions have been transferred to the performing
level or eliminated altogether.
Nowadays, everyone is responsible for quality.
Thank You!!!